


10,124 Kilometers and Your Shirt

by RoseintheWind



Series: Iwaoi Week 2020 [9]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Established Relationship, Little angsty at first but then is fluffy, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Non-Chronological, Oiks is incredibly forgetful, Post-Time Skip, Sharing Clothes, iwaoi week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseintheWind/pseuds/RoseintheWind
Summary: ~~Iwaoi Week Day 9 - Clothes Sharing~~Iwaizumi watches Oikawa leave on his flight for Argentina, and he regrets how it'll be another year of them separated. But when he finds something within his stack of clothes, he thinks he may be able to make his birthday a lot better.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: Iwaoi Week 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035180
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	10,124 Kilometers and Your Shirt

"Do you have to leave?" Iwaizumi asks weakly. 

Oikawa gingerly takes his hand. "I wish I could stay forever." He chokes on a sob. "I don't want to go back, but I have to. I'll call you as soon as I land, I promise." 

Iwaizumi sighs, scrunched. "While you're still here, happy birthday Tooru." It's three days early. 

"Thank you," Oikawa says, barely above a whisper. "I'll see you soon." 

Iwaizumi kisses him, choked and desperate for the last form of contact he'll have with him for months. 

Oikawa grasps his shirt, it's too hard, too much, like when he lets go he'll never feel it again. His knuckles come out white when he releases. Iwaizumi takes one last look at Oikawa, the beautiful menace he calls a best friend and boyfriend. The bags under his eyes are too dark (he feels horrible he had to book such an early flight), his hair is all mussed up from almost oversleeping (he warned him, but Oikawa wouldn't leave his side), his lips are bright red from seconds before (God, he wishes this really wouldn't be the last kiss for a while), and-

Maybe he should let Oikawa go before he drags him back to Irvine with him. 

Oikawa looks at him once more, doe eyes watered and long hands clutched around his suitcase harder than he needs them to. He's a gorgeous mess but Iwaizumi knows he has to let him leave.

Oikawa doesn't look back or say anything to Iwaizumi as he turns and walks through customs, also fully aware that he won't be able to go through if he looks back.

Iwaizumi goes back to his tiny apartment at U.C. Irvine, where he remembers the last traces of Oikawa. The thought crushes him, that his boyfriend is so far away, that he can't access him by direct touch anymore, not like he had taken for granted in their first eighteen years of life. He tries not to think about it as he goes straight for his laundry that he put in before Oikawa left. 

He meticulously folds it and tries to get his mind off Oikawa for a while through the small chore. Crease sleaves, fold down, put away. Tuck hood, pull in sleaves, fold over, put away. Take his favourite bright cyan shirt, the one that reminds him of Aoba Johsai with the emblazoned number seventeen on it,  _ shit better put that one away _ , fold, fold, fold.

_ Wait _ . Iwaizumi does a double-take. Number seventeen? He doesn't own anything with the number seventeen. He's wanted to get something like that to keep Oikawa close to him for months but it's hard to find a perfect cyan jersey reminiscent of Argentina with the number seventeen specifically on it. So that could only mean...

He digs the perfectly folded shirt out and drops it so it fully hangs in front of him. Sure enough, the number seventeen and "Oikawa" is printed at the back along with the cyan and Argentine flag across many sleaves. 

He digs through the pile and sure enough, his cyan shirt is nowhere to be found. 

He's going to kill that idiot. Who the hell leaves the most important thing he has to identify himself out on the court? Along with taking a shirt that is just plain cyan instead of having white on it?  _ All the way across the fucking world _ .

Oikawa surely won't be able to come back and get it now, he thinks. He has to be at customs or even boarding his plane. Almost a two-day flight was ahead of him and Oikawa wouldn't be able to check until then. Luckily, he knows Oikawa's schedule and that his next game won't be for another week. 

But while trying to think of a way to get said jersey to Oikawa, he blunders. It's so precious, the material under his hands. Something that Oikawa cherishes and has worked his whole life to attain the meaning behind this jersey. It still smells like him, or rather a little like Iwaizumi's apartment hidden behind the lavender laundry detergent. 

He puts the jersey on. It's a little tight, just like most of Oikawa's clothes had been on him whenever he'd had to borrow. Oikawa had always been sleek and lean, and him full and bulky. But that didn't mean Oikawa's clothes would burst at the seams when he wore them, or that Oikawa wasn't bulky enough for his clothes to fall right over him, just that they almost fit, not too perfect but just enough. 

He misses Oikawa, he hates to admit it because he thought it would be easy to say he doesn't but he really does. He misses his "home" because when you reside outside your home country he likes to think of his reminder that sticks out in California, but is nostalgically Japanese. Argentina is very similar. He knows Oikawa gets homesick but he's also never admitted to it. He hopes home to him is also that anomaly, that familiarity. 

He puts on Oikawa's jersey before he remembers how far away Oikawa is again. But not before recalling that Oikawa had to go back for training in a few days, but he was off for two weeks before that next game. Oikawa had only stayed for one. The next flight to Argentina would be in three hours. 

It's not until Oikawa lands, sends of quick text to Iwaizumi saying "I made it back" with the kissing-with-a-heart emoji and returns to his apartment does he start to unpack. He haphazardly throws everything into the washer, trying to fish out the jersey he had brought all the way to California to show Iwaizumi what it had actually looked like. 

His eyes glance at a piece of cyan amongst the pile and he pulls it out to hang up. 

But it's not Argentina-jersey cyan. Just a plain shirt. Oikawa owns plain cyan shirts, but he didn't bring one on the trip. Iwaizumi had worn this one just the day before he left. 

"Oh, no," Oikawa mutters. "Coach is going to kill me."

He shoots a quick text to Iwaizumi about the situation. If he mails it back to him, he's sure he'll get it in time for the game. 

However, Iwaizumi's usual instantaneous reply never comes and it's not until about two and a half hours later does Iwaizumi text back telling him he'll get it to him and expects his shirt back. 

Oikawa laughs fondly and yawns. His bed is looking increasingly more comfortable, as does Iwaizumi's shirt, his personal reminder of someone who didn't have to seem so far away. 

He wears the loose-hanging shirt as he crawls into bed. Even amongst his covers and mattress, he can't help but sleepily think that the shirt is the most comfortable thing he's ever touched. 

_ Approx. 2 Days Ago. 3 Days Until Oikawa's Birthday. _

Iwaizumi realizes he doesn't really have a plan slightly too late as he touches down in Mexico City, Mexico. It was a long process as many flights are to be, with customs as handling baggage. Iwaizumi inwardly groans at how love has made him too soft as he's gotten older but can't help but not mind it at the expense of Oikawa. That being said, he still isn't sure how he's going to  _ get _ to Oikawa.

After boarding an 11:30 flight on a last-minute-booked plane, he scours around MEX trying to find his next gate. He's never been to Mexico, and won't be there for longer than five hours but maybe Oikawa will like it. He's given his birthday present to Oikawa already - a pair of silver star earrings - but he figures that if he brings back something from a place neither of them has been along with his jersey maybe it would be a better present then something given early. He trades a few of his dollars for peso and walks into one of the small shops and spots a crochet volleyball. He purchases it off of the small Mexican lady at the till who thanks him in Spanish. Even if "Gracias" was an easy word to remember by its popular language by people who hardly speak Spanish, he's glad he's still picked up on Argentinan Spanish to understand. 

MEX, like LAX, is huge because of its massive cityscape. LAX is beautiful but flamboyant, and like L.A. always wants to make itself known. Iwaizumi thinks it might be too much for him but MAX is incredible for how big it is too. He finds the hole-like design on the roof and parts of the walls to be obscure if not anything. The light pours out of many of the holes where the gift shops and restaurants reside. People roam in and out of places, swerving in haste, or taking in perhaps a new place. 

Speaking of, he doesn't have the time to stay around much longer. He's got a plane to catch.

_ Current Time _

Oikawa wakes to the shirt still clinging to him, remembering how he had one of Iwaizumi's shirts in familiar Seijoh-like fashion. His birthday is tomorrow and the most he'll be spending it with Iwaizumi is this physical shirt and a digital Facetime. 

He gets up and changes for practice. He's glad he crashed last night as soon as he arrived, his jet lag isn't nearly as bad. 

He checks his phone before leaving for practice. Iwaizumi hadn't even seen the message. Oikawa's eyebrows crease. This wasn't like him. His stomach flips at the worst-case scenario before shaking it off. He's sure Iwaizumi's just busy.

That night he wears Iwaizumi's oversized shirt to comfort him as he thinks of how he won't be there for his birthday. He sends off a few more texts in hopes Iwaizumi will text him back. 

A few hours later, when Oikawa is in a restless sleep, his phone beeps. He jolts.

_ Yeah I'll get it. _ Is all he gets back.

He flurries, almost dropping his phone. 

_ Iwa-chan!! Now you decide to text!? You scared me! _

_ I'm sorry.  _ Is what Iwaizumi texts, short and simple.  _ I'll make it up to you, I promise. _

He promises, huh?

_ I'll be holding you to that Iwa-chan!  _

_ Alright. Oh, and Tooru? Happy birthday. Now go back to bed idiot, it's like 6:00.  _

_ Okay! And thanks, Iwa-chan :) _

_ Approx. 1 1/2 Days Ago. 2 Days Until Oikawa's Birthday. _

The flight gets delayed. Instead of being around three or four hours behind Oikawa, Iwaizumi turns out to be eight. He buys coffee in Mexico because he can. He sits in a chair, not wanting to do anything but melt from jet lag. He sleeps for a couple hours and nearly misses his flight. He boards his plane for a nine-hour ride, which won't get him to Argentina until early morning on Oikawa's birthday. 

_ Approx. Current Time. Oikawa's Birthday is Today. _

He knows he's tired (even though he slept on the plane), evidence from almost slipping on his luggage as he picks it up after he lands in Mendoza. But he knows that Oikawa is just two hours and a half away. 

He checks his phone, which he stupidly hadn't done before he left America. Oikawa had texted him a few times, mostly about his jersey. He sends back a quick  _ Yeah, I'll get it. _ He hopes he didn't make him worry. That theory is instantly proven wrong by Oikawa quick-firing a response, even so early into the morning. They string texts back and forth, and even in his fatigued state and through such a small conversation, he remembers why he's doing this, even so far away. He rents a car, chugs a black coffee and drives all the way to San Juan. 

_ Current Time: July 20th, 8:37 am _

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

Oikawa groans from under his now-comfortable blankets. Normally, he'd get up for a run, but with his lack of sleep from the night before, he thinks he can skip for just one day. The star earrings he's wearing slightly catch onto his pillow as rolls himself out.

Now onto the next question, who the hell was knocking on his door so early?

_ Knock, knock. _

" _ Santiago, if it's you saying to me again that we have practice, it's not going to work _ !" He yells down the hallway in Spanish. 

The knocking continues, ever so slightly. Oikawa sighs.

" _ Alright, I'll be right there _ ." 

The door slowly opens, and behind it sits a familiar face. Not the face of one of his teammates, but someone who he thought he left half a world away.

"HAJIME!" Oikawa's eyes light up as he squeals. He jumps into Iwaizumi's arms, all tiredness forgotten. 

"Happy birthday Tooru." Iwaizumi says. 

They stay there for a couple of minutes. If Oikawa had cared more about the people around him, he'd see them startled at his outbursts and their stares as they trudge around so early into the morning. But he doesn't, too enamoured by the person in front of him, almost believing that he's still dreaming. 

Iwaizumi leans back and presses a kiss to Oikawa's forehead. 

"I don't get it! How are you here? Why- When-"

"Seems you forgot about my extended break, dumbass."

"Well, I didn't think you were going to spend it by coming all the way here! When did you even get here?"

"Around three hours ago." 

"What!?"

"I had to drive from Mendoza."

"You drove all the way from  _ Mendoza _ ? Just to get here?"

"Yep."

"And -besides the obvious- why did you decide to come- just all the way-"

"Because I love you, Tooru." Iwaizumi cradles Oikawa's cheek. "And-hold on, is that my shirt?"

Oikawa looks down, a wide flush covering his cheeks. 

"No! I have plenty of shirts like this in Argentina's colours!"

"It doesn't fit you."

"I bought it too big! That's why I sleep in it! And you're wearing  _ your  _ cyan shirt...anyway..." Oikawa slows. Iwaizumi was indeed wearing a cyan shirt, but one with an emblazoned seventeen on it and the letters ARG and the Argentinan flag on it in multiple places. 

"You wore my jersey all the way  _ here _ ?"

"Happy birthday."

"Iwa-chan! It looks so good on you! But it's been on you for how long? We have to get that washed."

"Shittykawa..." Iwaizumi frowns. 

Oikawa kisses his lips lightly before escorting both of them into the door and erasing Iwaizumi's frown.

"It's okay, Iwa-chan." Oikawa laughs. "If you really want to wear something of mine in public, you can take my entire wardrobe. But if you really just wanted to wear my jersey to see me," Oikawa hums, a laugh tinkling off at the end as he looks Iwaizumi up and down. "Maybe I should leave it more often." 

"You idiot." Iwaizumi mutters, face also red. "You should know that I'm not the only one who looks good in other people's clothes."

"Is that another invitation Hajime?" Oikawa asks, getting closer to him.

"As much of an invitation as it is an offer." Iwaizumi replies. 

The door is shut behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> What's this? Endnotes? 
> 
> Follow me on twitter @phoenixesse or tumblr @rosiey9 for updates and rebloggings/retweets of people's cool things because I can't do art :)


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